[popo]

https://www.reikan.co.uk/focalweb/index....autofocus/

 

Found the above interesting. Not having any experience with comparing Nikon and Canon AFMA units, are they really comparable? Wondering if that may explain the spread.

 

Who's going to do the post about mirrorless not needing to do this?

[Brightcolours]

What I observe in forums is that most Nikon users keep themselves busy with AF MA, and that you see that a lot less with Canon users. So probably Canon's AF system is more accurate on the whole, something I have thought for a while now.

 

And mirrorless... They are not spot on all of the time. But on this forum one can't honestly discus that, it becomes a troll fest. And tests that show that then are painted as being biased or even paid for by manufacturers via ads.

[JJ_SO]

I never compared Canon to Nikon results. I also have to say: My lens calculations were not delivered to their database from a certain moment on, because FoCal's business model is:

Buy the software (in my case the Pro-version, although limited to a low number of bodies)

one year access to database (also to cross-reference my results)

after that year they open up their hand again, if I want to access the database. And of course also for a main update

 

I'm judging this pretty greedy. I already paid more, but they don't pay me for my time and results I delivered to their database? A little bit too one-sided for my taste. I switched off the upload to their server.

 

As to the Nikon results: Seem credible to me. With regular Nikon lenses and three different bodies I had also a wide range of results. That could be explained with a less good quality control. But also the reliability of Nikon's AF has a wider range than I would wish for.

 

Okay, blurred shots I also can provoke with mirrorless. I just need to switch to AF-C on Fuji, hahahaha.

[obican]

And mirrorless... They are not spot on all of the time. But on this forum one can't honestly discus that, it becomes a troll fest. And tests that show that then are painted as being biased or even paid for by manufacturers via ads.

 

Theoretically, mirrorless AF is always spot on. In practice, that's not the case. Not due to same reasons as DSLR but in the end, they are not magically accurate. Still better than a DSLR lens that desperately needs MA, which would never be accurate.

[JJ_SO]

..., which would never be accurate.

 

except it's AF fails in the right direction and the right amount  :lol: Sometimes it is spray'n'pray.

[stoppingdown]

FoCal has been one of my smartest purchases. I bought it... and few months later I started switching to mirrorless.  :lol:

[popo]

I bought it early on, and after doing what I had at the time, I haven't gone back to it apart from when I got the Sigma 50 Art. That's the last time I had any reason to use it.

 

I might need to look again, but I thought I bought some version that allowed updates forever. This was before they even had servers to talk to... depending on when they implemented that, I might not even have used it.

[JJ_SO]

That's funny, I also was under the impression to get lifelong updates, but:

https://www.reikanfocal.com/#get-focal

 

They say, "Free upgrades for 12 months" which would be a short life.

 

And they also limit the number of licensed cameras you can use.

https://www.reikan.co.uk/focalweb/index....-overview/

 

Now, the tricky part is: If you "delicense" a camera you sold, this also counts as an act of licensing - they just don't tell that. Just like adding a new body. They behaved friendly, when my license was blocked and I asked "WHAT?", just a bit more diplomatic. After the rainy weekend I could not use to MA my at the time new D810 I got a reply. They have business hours, you know... I just had to run in this trap.

 

But my feeling afterwards was awkward. Also, when they told me "12 months are over, thank you for your help with feeding our database, but you can only benefit of it when you send over some more money." Interestingly, FoCal creates reports, but only the 75% more expensive Pro-version let you save them, so you could make your own statistics.

 

That was enough to add their address to my spam-rules. I understand they need to make money, new cameras to buy and test costs also, but I can do it fully manually with LensAlign without any additional annual costs. With Canon, the test runs automatically, with Nikon I always have to adjust AFMA to FoCal's voice commands (which are pretty funny in German  ). They say "Fully Automatic mode", but they mean "Hands-free only for certain Canon Models, where FoCal even can adjust AFMA values - so Canon users just hit START and get the final result without any further user action.

 

LensAlign is much less elegant and doesn't have all those features like reliability check, check of the various focus-points, check for the sharpest aperture and more gimmicks features. But all these features are time-killers. And they act like a virus scanner - these apps go off for several reasons. Making the consumer believe he got some show for his money being one of the reasons. I had to redevelop some trust in Nikon's AF, which apparently is not up to Canon's standard, but also not total off.

 

What we don't see in the statistics: How many third party lenses were involved? FoCal does have the data, as the app is listing every bit of EXIF it can squeeze out of the lens.